September 19, 2017 - - Matthew 16:24-27 Follow Jesus

The liberal says the end of religion is to make man happy while he's alive, and the fundamentalist says the end of religion is to make man happy when he dies.

But again! The end of all of the religion, it was proclaimed, was the happiness of man. And whereas the liberal says, "By social change and political order we're going to do away with slums, we're going to do away with alcoholism and dope addiction and poverty. And we're going to make HEAVEN ON EARTH AND MAKE YOU HAPPY WHILE YOU'RE ALIVE! We don't know anything about after that, but we want to be happy while you're alive!" They went ahead to try and do it, only to be brought to a terrifying shock at the first World War and utterly staggered by the second World War, because they seemed to be getting nowhere fast.

And then the fundamentalists, along the line, are now tuning in on this same wavelength of humanism. Until we find it something like this: "Accept Jesus so you can go to heaven!

You don't want to go to that old, filthy, nasty, burning hell when there is a beautiful heaven up there! Now come to Jesus so you can go to heaven!"

And the appeal could be as much to selfishness as a couple of men sitting in a coffee shop deciding they are going to rob a bank to get something for nothing! There's a way that you can give an invitation to sinners, that just sounds for all the world like a plot to take a filling station proprietor's Saturday night earnings without working for them.

Humanism is, I believe, the most deadly and disastrous of all the philosophical stenches that's crept up through the grating over the pit of Hell.

--excerpt from: Paris Reidhead "Ten Shekels and a Shirt"

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.

Matthew 16:24-27

Forgive me, Lord of Majesty and Glory, for thinking I could sell the idea of heaven and make the idea of serving You palatable to a world seeking only its own pleasure. Great are You, O LORD my King. Splendid and awe-inspiring are Your works. Therefore I despise my own feeble works and my so-called accomplishments and repent before You. Let my only reward, which truly is the greatest possible reward, be to know You more intimately and fully. I ask it in Jesus' Name. Amen.